This is an excellent article and so very sad. We must do something in this country to protect people from these damn greedy industries who just want more money for themselves.

Somehow, I had missed, until yesterday, that the KOCH BROTHERS have alot to do with this as they own or have some ownership in Freedom Industries which is the company that is responsible for this particular spill. This sort of thing will continue as long as people continue voting in Koch Brother candidates.

These are the very people that the Tea Party/Republicans/conservatives consider to be the "takers." These are the poor people who lost unemployment benefits and who just had their food stamps curtailed. You can bet your ass, they don't have health insurance unless they managed to get it with Obamacare. Yes, it's easy for the conservatives to sit back in their warm homes, with their full bellies and their clean water and go on and on about the "takers."

And, it isn't just West Virginia; this crap is going on all over the country. The media talks very little about any of it and congress refuses to see it. All the while, the Koch Brothers pour money into local, state and federal elections so that they can completely control the country and have their way, all the while leaving a trail of pollution and death wherever they go. If you've ever watched that documentary about the Koch Brothers, you know that it clearly showed all of the pollution left in the wake of all of their various industries.

If people don't wake the hell up, the whole country will look like this before long.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Freedom Industries, the company responsible for contaminating the water of 300,000 Kanawha Valley residents, was founded by a two-time convicted felon, benefited from the 2009 federal stimulus and at least two of its executives have longstanding ties to the Charleston business community.

On Sunday morning, Charles Ryan Associates, a prominent Charleston public relations firm hired by Freedom, abruptly dropped the chemical distributor as a client.

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"I made the decision not to represent them," said Susan Lavenski, who was handling Freedom for Charles Ryan. She would not give any details as to why she would no longer represent the company.

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Freedom Industries was founded in 1992 by Gary Southern and Carl Lemley Kennedy II, according to filings with the West Virginia secretary of state. The company's website, however, says it was founded in 1986.

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"Our friends and our neighbors, this incident is extremely unfortunate, unanticipated and we are very, very sorry for the disruption to everybody's daily life that this incident has caused," Southern, the company's president, said at the news conference Friday night. "It has been an extremely long day, I'm having trouble talking at the moment. I would appreciate it if we could wrap this thing up."

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He has not spoken publicly since.

Kennedy is still listed as "incorporator" with the secretary of state, but a woman who answered the phone at Freedom Industries on Friday said he left the company "years ago."

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As recently as 2005, Kennedy owned 5 percent of Freedom Industries, according to a bankruptcy filing. That stake was valued at $675,000, according to Kennedy's filing, meaning that in 2005 Freedom Industries was valued at $13.5 million.

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That valuation has almost certainly increased over the past eight years. In 2008, the company employed 45 people, sold 10 million gallons of material and earned $26 million, according to newspaper records.

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Within the last two weeks, on Dec. 31, 2013, Freedom merged with three other companies, Etowah River Terminal, Poca Blending and Crete Technologies.

The companies were already interrelated. Freedom markets and distributes chemicals that are mixed by Poca Blending in Nitro. Etowah River Terminal is the storage facility on the Elk which leaked the chemical. It has about a dozen tanks, each of which can hold tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals. It was formerly a Pennzoil facility.

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Kennedy told the court in 2006 that he also owned portions of Poca Blending, Etowah River Terminal, New River Chemical Co., New River Leasing, New River Air, The Sands Land Co., Dogtech Land Co., Protech Land Co., and all of Southway Inc.

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Kennedy filed for bankruptcy in 2005 after he was charged with tax evasion and willful failure to pay employees' withholdings to the government. He pleaded guilty to both charges in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia.

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He admitted that between 2000 and 2003, while he was the accountant for Freedom Industries, Poca Blending and New River Chemical Co., he withheld more than $1 million from employee paychecks that he never passed on to the federal government, according to court filings. He also owed more than $200,000 in state taxes.

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"Carl L. Kennedy II took steps to conceal a large portion of his income from the Internal Revenue Service by, among other things, using his position as an accountant to ensure a W2 form was not filed in his name," the court document reads, "using corporate funds for his personal benefit and writing corporate checks to cash for his personal enrichment."

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He was sentenced to more than three years in prison, but had his sentence cut almost in half after he cooperated with authorities by making controlled cocaine buys and wearing a wire in conversations with a former business associate.

It was not Kennedy's first brush with the law.

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In 1987 Kennedy pleaded guilty to selling between 10 and 12 ounces of cocaine in connection with a scandal that toppled then-Charleston Mayor Mike Roark.

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Kennedy has, in the past, owned extensive property in downtown Charleston, including the building currently housing Bar 101 on Capitol Street and the building at 8 Capitol St.

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Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said he has known Kennedy since the '80s and called him an "edgy guy."

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"He was just kind of a character and he's gotten in trouble," Jones said. "I liked him, but if he got in trouble twice on felony charges then he's a slow learner."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Last Wednesday night, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin continued the now-familiar refrain of West Virginia officials who oppose tough environmental regulations, especially if they are aimed at the coal industry and issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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In his State of the State address, the governor promised he would, "never back down from the EPA because of its misguided policies on coal."

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By the weekend, Tomblin found himself blasting the leak of a coal-cleaning chemical into the Elk River, and confronting an ongoing emergency that's left 300,000 of his constituents unable to turn on their taps.

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"A chemical leak is unacceptable and must be cleaned up as soon as possible," the governor told reporters during a briefing Saturday night.

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Also at the Saturday briefing Tomblin pushed back at a reporter who connected the ongoing water crisis to the coal industry.

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"This was not a coal company incident," the governor shot back. "This was a chemical company incident."

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On Sunday night he did the same.

"This was not a coal company, this was a chemical supplier, where the leak occurred," he said. "As far as I know there was no coal company within miles."

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But critics of the governor and his approach to regulatory matters say that the leak provides an all-too real portrait of ongoing threats to the state's public health that the state does little to address. The leak, at the chemical tank farm Freedom Industries, was just 1.5 miles upstream from West Virginia American Water's regional intake.

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"We must take a critical look at how to better protect our vital drinking water sources," said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. "Clean water is essential for life. We cannot cut corners in ensuring that our drinking water supply is protected."

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Some groups, such as the Sierra Club, pointed more directly at the coal industry, which relies on products like the one involved in the Elk River spill.

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"Coal mining communities are faced with the dangers of water pollution from coal mining and pollution every day," said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "This spill pulls the curtain back on the coal industry's widespread and risky use of dangerous chemicals, and is an important remainder that coal-related pollution poses a serious danger to nearby communities."

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In a Friday statement, the group Appalachian Voices made a connection between the ongoing regional water crisis and the coal industry that went beyond just the chemical involved.

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"An increasing number of private wells in southwestern and central West Virginia, where the spill occurred, have been contaminated by decades of coal mining and processing," the group said. "One result has been an ongoing expansion of municipal water systems to rural communities that would otherwise rely on well water."

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At the same time, shrinking revenues and declining investments in public infrastructure have led more and more small communities to contract with private companies like West Virginia American Water to provide drinking water services.

"Driven by profit margins, companies have aggressively consolidated their businesses, leading them to serve ever larger distribution networks from only a handful of treatment plants and drinking water intakes," Appalachian Voices said. That's how, the group said, one chemical spill into one river cut off drinking water access to roughly 16 percent of West Virginia's population.

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Meanwhile, other environmental advocates said the chemical spill shows the need for more of a focus on examining threats to major drinking water supplies and ensuring they are protected.

In West Virginia, the state Department of Health and Human Resources writes "Source Water Assessment" reports with that goal in mind.

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DHHR's assessment for West Virginia American Water's Elk River intake is more than a decade old. Dated 2002, the report mentions the former Pennzoil facility that Freedom Industries now occupies. But it doesn't mention Freedom Industries, and doesn't appear to take into account the chemicals that Freedom stores on the site in large amounts. State officials have known the identities of the chemicals since at least 2007.

This video was taken by my husband in the morning hours of Saturday, 1/11/14, 3 days after the Charleston WV, chemical spill, as an experiment to check our water quality. They say our situation is not that bad. You be the judge.

“I showered and brushed my teeth this morning and am just fine,” may seem like an odd justification for poisoning the water that supplies nine counties and over 300,000 people, but then again we need to remember the top right wing argument against global warming: ‘It was cold last Thursday.’ It is even less surprising when that logic comes from the girlfriend of the CEO of Freedom Industries. It becomes almost expected when that company has ties to the Koch Brothers. - See more at: http://aattp.org/exclusive-wife-of-ceo-whose-company-poisoned-wv-water-plays-the-victim-while-enjoying-lavish-lifestyle/#sthash.5i16UkNd.xc984r6P.dpuf

“I showered and brushed my teeth this morning and am just fine,” may seem like an odd justification for poisoning the water that supplies nine counties and over 300,000 people, but then again we need to remember the top right wing argument against global warming: ‘It was cold last Thursday.’ It is even less surprising when that logic comes from the girlfriend of the CEO of Freedom Industries. It becomes almost expected when that company has ties to the Koch Brothers. - See more at: http://aattp.org/exclusive-wife-of-ceo-whose-company-poisoned-wv-water-plays-the-victim-while-enjoying-lavish-lifestyle/#sthash.5i16UkNd.xc984r6P.dpuf

“I showered and brushed my teeth this morning and am just fine,” may seem like an odd justification for poisoning the water that supplies nine counties and over 300,000 people, but then again we need to remember the top right wing argument against global warming: ‘It was cold last Thursday.’ It is even less surprising when that logic comes from the girlfriend of the CEO of Freedom Industries. It becomes almost expected when that company has ties to the Koch Brothers. - See more at: http://aattp.org/exclusive-wife-of-ceo-whose-company-poisoned-wv-water-plays-the-victim-while-enjoying-lavish-lifestyle/#sthash.5i16UkNd.xc984r6P.dpuf

Hours of cable news time and thousands of words have been spent in search of what "Bridgegate" means for Chris Christie. An equal and opposite amount of energy has been poured into an examination of what the Christie situation means for Obama.

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Meanwhile, in West Virginia, there are 300,000 people without useable water, and an unknown number who may fall ill because the warning to avoid the tainted supply came seven hours after the leak was discovered – and perhaps weeks after it happened. (Neighbors of the plant have told reporters they detected the chemical's odor in December.)

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Complaining about desperate news coverage is to call foul on a game that is actually just playing by a different set of rules. I know that. I know, too, that there's no organized conspiracy, nor even any vague ill will, involved in how it came to be that Bridgegate continues to attract punditry while West Virginia only generates the kind of sympathetic-if-distant coverage we usually grant far-off and not too devastating natural disasters.

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday overhauling the country's hazardous waste laws.

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The bill, called the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act, amends both the Solid Waste Disposal Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (which is commonly known as Superfund). It would remove requirements that the EPA periodically update and review solid waste disposal regulations, and would make it harder for the government to require companies that deal with hazardous substances to carry enough insurance to cover cleanup. The bill would also require more consultation with states before the government imposes cleanup requirements for Superfund sites -- places where hazardous waste is located and could be affecting local people or ecosystems.

The ban on tap water for parts of West Virginia was lifted on Monday, ending a crisis for some of the 300,000 people who were told not to drink, wash or cook with water after a chemical spill tainted the water supply.

It’s a hustle of grand proportions and deadly consequences. The House of Representatives will vote today on H.R. 2279, a bill that guts Superfund—the law that requires industries to handle their hazardous waste safely and clean up their toxic spills.

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The bill strikes at the heart of the Superfund, which over the past three decades has allowed the EPA and other federal agencies to identify and clean up thousands of polluted sites across the country. The bill is so radically dangerous that the White House issued a statement asserting that H.R. 2279 could cause “significant site cleanup delays, endangering public health and the environment," and recommended the President veto the bill. More than120 public interest groups have also called for its defeat in a letter to Congress.

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Why does House leadership want to eviscerate Superfund? A principle reason is to protect the coffers of polluting industries. H.R. 2279 would block the EPA from establishing rules to ensure that polluters cannot walk away from Superfund sites and leave American taxpayers to foot the bill. Companies have already defaulted on billions of dollars of cleanup costs at the most dangerous hazardous waste sites in the country.

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This is a big deal when one in four Americans lives within three miles of a Superfund site. H.R. 2279 is the wrong bill at exactly the wrong time. The Superfund Trust Fund, which was once funded by taxes on petroleum and chemical companies—is exactly zero. Congressional appropriation for Superfund is currently at 40 percent of 1987 levels, yet there are still more than 1,300 sites on the National Priorities List, the list of the most toxic waste sites in the nation. The funding shortfall causes delays in cleanups—and consequently endangers millions of Americans. We cannot afford to weaken the Act to spare the industries responsible for the pollution.

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H.R. 2279 is a con job of the highest order, allowing polluters to walk away without losing a penny, while taxpayers are left footing the bill. Superfund cleanups routinely run into the tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. The coal ash cleanup in Kingston TN will cost over $1 billion.

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It’s a bad time to be left without telephone booths, but we appreciate the White House standing in and hope that members of Congress will heed the clear warning and act today to protect the health and pocketbooks of their constituents by opposing H.R. 2279.

As West Virginians were learning Thursday of a devastating chemical spill in the Elk River that has rendered water undrinkable for 300,000 people, the US House of Representatives was busy gutting federal hazardous-waste cleanup law.

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The House passed the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act that would ultimately eliminate requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency to review and update hazardous-waste disposal regulations in a timely manner, and make it more difficult for the government to compel companies that deal with toxic substances to carry proper insurance for cleanups, pushing the cost on to taxpayers.

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In addition, the bill would result in slower response time in the case of a disaster, requiring increased consultation with states before the federal government calls for cleanup of Superfund sites - where hazardous waste could affect people and the environment.

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The bill amends both the Solid Waste Disposal Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act - often referred to as Superfund, which was created in 1980 to hold polluter industries accountable for funding the cleanup of hazardous-waste sites.

There are over 1,300 priority Superfund sites in the US.

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The legislation was passed by a vote of 225 to 188, mostly along party lines, with all but four Republicans supporting the bill and all but five Democrats opposing it. One of those Democrats crossing party lines to support the changes to environmental law was Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

"We are five years into this failed experiment of increased government spending, taxation, and regulation," Gardner said in a statement. "The results are clear: The power to grow our economy and put Americans back to work lies in the private sector. With more than 80,000 pages of new federal regulations published in 2013 alone, common-sense revisions of existing rules and regulations are a vital part of ensuring businesses that power our state and local economies are given the capability to grow."

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Critics point out that the bill severely weakens environmental protections. Earthjustice and 128 public interest groups said the legislation would “threaten human health and the environment while protecting polluters from liability for the costs of toxic cleanups.”

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The legislation also "substantially increases the potential for harm in communities across the United States. As one in four Americans live within three miles of a hazardous-waste site, safe management and prompt cleanup of toxic waste sites are essential to our nation's health and economy,” the group added.

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The bill is a "New Year’s gift to corporate interests,” said Scott Slesinger, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement, adding that taxpayers will be the one to assume cleanup costs.

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Opponents will probably find salvation in the US Senate, which is unlikely to pass the bill. In addition, the White House has promised to veto the legislation.

"The bill's requirements could result in significant site cleanup delays, endangering public health and the environment," White House policy advisers wrote in a statement.

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In West Virginia, federal authorities opened an investigation into what caused the leak that poisoned the river and shut down much of the state’s capital, Charleston and surrounding counties. US Attorney Booth Goodwin said authorities will take whatever action is appropriate based on the evidence found, reports the Associated Press.

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In response to the crisis, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Water and Waste Management ordered Freedom Industries to cease operations Friday afternoon. The state also ordered the company to remove chemicals from the facility where the leak contaminated the area's water supply, the AP reported.

Hundreds have reported sickness, businesses have closed and bottled-water supply is low after a chemical spill into the Elk River in West Virginia that has affected 300,000 people in nine counties. The White House declared the incident a federal disaster.

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West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre said he did not “know if the water is not safe” and added that the chemical was not lethal in its strongest form.

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“Until we get out and flush the actual system and do more testing, we can't say how long this (advisory) will last at this time.”

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On the water company’s Facebook page, some residents complained that they had not been immediately informed about the water contamination.

>>> a state of emergency remains in effect this morning for some 300,000 people in west virginia who have been told not to use their water for anything but flushing their toilets. it all stems from a chemical spill near the capital city of charleston, where luke russert is this morning. luke, good morning.

>> reporter: hey, good morning, erica. 15% of the state's population this morning still does not have access to safe, accessible tap water, and that's something that is very problematic for a whole lot of people for many, many reasons. number one, here in the capital city of charleston, businesses have been forced to shut down, a lot of folks can't go in to work, and a lot of folks aren't even allowed to be able to grab the amount of water that they need from their own personal residences. on top of that, water distribution sites have been set up around the state in order to try and curtail some of the problems that have arised from this spill, and that will continue throughout the day. local officials hope to test the water to see if it becomes more diluted, the chemical that was introduced to it yesterday, but there is no clear indication as to whether or not that will be the case. and we're still waiting to see when exactly the water will be safe and accessible to the public again. freedom industries, the company that's responsible for this, they've had a few statements over the last few hours. a lot of folks here on the ground do not feel they have been apologetic enough. the state government has ordered them to move the remaining tanks with their chemicals back to a safe and secure area further away from the river. now, guys, a big problem with this has been illness. this chemical that's been introduced to the water has caused some vomiting, nausea with some folks. over 670 people called the west virginia center for disease control yesterday. that number is expected to probably continue today as more people report what they were exactly exposed to. the situation does not look like it's going to change at all, but a lot of folks here, especially the ones i've talked to, guys, life continues at a standstill until they have access to that clean, accessible tap water. erica?

>>> a state of emergency is in effect tonight and hundreds of thousands wonder how long it will be before they get relief from the water crisis caused by a chemical leak that has contaminated the city's water supply. nbc's luke russert has more on the story.

>> we don't know when the situation will be remedied.

>> reporter: for the third straight day, as many as 300,000 residents have been unable to bathe, drink or cook with tap water. relying instead on bottled water and refills at government distribution centers, and that is where we met penny faber, the mother of this 9 month-old boy, trent trenton.

>> i can tend to myself, but he can't.

>> reporter: at home, all faucets are off limits, her baby is cleaned with distilled water and she mixes the formula with boltled water.

>> the water is not safe for us to drink.

>> reporter: and there does not seem to be relief in sight. today, the governor's office says it will take days before they even know when it will be safe to drink the water again.

>> this is a large system and requires a significant amount of testing and sampling.

>> reporter: all of this the result of a chemical spill at freedom industries that contaminate d that elk river, going down stream which supplies water to nine counties. since then, the poison center has reported 787 cases of exposure, complaints of nausea, vomiting and skin irritation. at the charleston area medical center, a water tank parked just outside for emergency cleaning and sterilizing.

>> water touches just about every piece of our lives and especially the hospital, clean cleaning the gowns the patients wear, the scrubs that operating room nurses are wearing to the bed sheets and pillows so it is really important.

>> reporter: while the hospitals stay open for now, schools and many businesses remain closed. the loss of revenue is expected to be in the millions, the devastating water contamination is impacting almost everyone there in the capital city. and lester, the residents are still on edge, late word that a team will be sent here on monday from the u.s. chemical safety board. they will investigate what exactly caused that leak a and what safeguards to be put in place so something this bad never happens

Members of the Caring Across Generations team are reaching out to emergency response crews on the ground in West Virginia. By adding your name, you've given us a powerful tool to help convince them to take meaningful action.

The more support we build on this petition, the more we will be able to sway the organizations providing local disaster relief.

Will you take the next big step and ask your friends and neighbors to show their support, too? .

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Personal note:

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I have many updates on this coal situation in WV. There is some shady stuff here and They are connected to the KOCH boys! omg

On this same subject, I just signed this petition and ask that you also sign. It is a petition to relief agencies working in West Virginia asking that they ensure that elderly people and people with disabilities have access to clean drinking water.

On Thursday, an estimated 300,000 residents of nine counties in West Virginia were told they could not use or drink their tap water after a chemical used to wash coal of impurities spilled from a holding tank into the Elk River. The spill prompted Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to declare a state of emergency, and 9-1-1 received more than 1,000 calls in the hours after a spill, with four or five people transported to the hospital by ambulance. According to the National Library of Medicine, repeated or prolonged exposure to the chemical, 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, can “cause headaches, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and can also cause a skin rash.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — As hundreds of thousands of residents faced a third day without water because of a chemical spill in a local river, a water company executive said on Saturday that it could be days before it was safe for them to drink tap water again.

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Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water, said that officials had set up four labs to test the amount of chemical in the water, but that it might take days to provide enough samples to determine whether the water was safe.

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A state official also said that thousands of gallons more of the chemical had leaked into the river than was initially believed.

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A team from the Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates industrial chemical accidents, will arrive on Monday to begin looking into the spill, the board said on Saturday.

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“Our goal is to find out what happened to allow a leak of such magnitude to occur and to ensure that the proper safeguards are in place to prevent a similar incident from occurring,” said Rafael Moure-Eraso, the chairman of the safety board.

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At a news conference here on Saturday evening, officials said tests had begun to show concentrations of the chemical dropping below the one part per million threshold considered safe by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The concentration must remain that low for 24 hours before the water system can be flushed out and the do-not-use ban can be lifted. Officials said they planned to conduct at least 100 additional tests of samples overnight and on Sunday.

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The contamination level was dropping because the leak had been shut off, said Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection. Some tests showed concentrations above one part per million, which officials attributed to sludge in the river and rain breaking up contaminated ice along it.

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According to Department of Environmental Protection officials, Freedom Industries, which owns the chemical tank that ruptured, is exempt from Department of Environmental Protection inspections and permitting since it stores chemicals, and does not produce them, The Associated Press reported. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he would look into tighter regulation of chemical storage facilities. “There are certain reporting things that companies have to do,” he said. “And I do think we have to look at them to make sure this kind of incident does not happen again.”

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Mr. Tomblin also said an interagency panel was developing literature to help residents clean their plumbing systems once the ban is lifted. Customers will receive a 1,000 gallon credit on their water bills, said Mr. McIntyre, the water company president.

Officials said Saturday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had already brought roughly 370,000 gallons of potable water to Charleston and nine surrounding counties. Residents have been instructed to not drink tap water, bathe or use the water for anything other than flushing the toilet. About 211,000 gallons of water would be brought in overnight, and an additional 211,000 was expected to arrive on Sunday, said Jimmy Gianato, the state director of homeland security.

At least 122 people have gone to local hospitals reporting nausea and vomiting, state officials said on Saturday. Five people were admitted at two hospitals.